News on LISA and Some Personal Stuff

LISA NEWS...

The LISA Symposium was in Paris this week and the result of this meeting was a strengthening of the efforts to put a gravitational-wave detector into space and the formation of the eLISA Consortium.  Below is a statement issued by the Consortium:

Getting ready for next time:

European gravitational wave community strengthens its space collaboration

During the 9th international LISA Symposium, held May 21 – 25 in Paris, the international LISA* community analyzed the new situation after ESA´s decision to choose JUICE for Europe´s next large space science mission. As the eLISA** mission, despite not being selected, was reported to have been unanimously ranked first by ESA´s scientific review committee in terms of scientific interest, strategic value for science and strategic value for the projects in Europe, the community is in good spirits: this is the first time that any space agency committee has ranked a gravitational wave observatory as its highest scientific priority. In order to prepare a strongest possible bid for the next launch opportunity the community has decided to continue its collaboration as the self-funded and independent eLISA consortium.

Besides preparing for the next competition the consortium will strongly support ESA's LISA Pathfinder mission, whose launch in 2014 will finally open the door to approval of a full gravitational wave mission. LPF will demonstrate key gravity-measuring technologies in space for the first time, preparing the way not only for gravitational wave detectors but also for next-generation Earth and planetary gravimetry.

The eLISA consortium consists of a management board, a steering committee, and working groups in science, technology and data analysis. It represents the European states involved in eLISA, i.e. Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and UK. The consortium is led by Prof. Dr. Karsten Danzmann, who chaired the former LISA International Science Team and is a director at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute/AEI) and a professor at the Leibniz Universität in Hannover, Germany.

“Our goal is to keep this highly motivated and effective scientific community together. It has attracted many young and excellent researchers. The knowledge and innovative potential of our community is documented in more than 2000 published scientific papers - we want to keep it working on a strong science, technology and data analysis programme”, says Karsten Danzmann, describing the role of the eLISA consortium.

Colleagues from the US, China and possibly other interested countries will be invited to participate. At the LISA Symposium, US participants presented results on a comparative study of low-cost LISA variants and expressed interest in contributing to an ESA-led mission. And for the first time, a large Chinese delegation participated in the LISA Symposium and announced their scientific interest in a close collaboration on a gravitational wave mission. The Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Space Agency are developing their own plans for a gravitational wave detector in space.  

LISA*: Laser Interferometer Space Antenna

eLISA**: evolved Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, also known as NGO (New Gravitational-Wave Observatory)

PERSONAL STUFF...

It's been a long while since I posted on here about myself.  One of the reasons I started this blog was that I wanted to humanize scientists and the work they do; you wouldn't believe how often visitors tell me that I'm not what they expected from a scientist (they mean that as a compliment) or that I was more normal than they expected.  I pulled back on writing much about myself simply because I wasn't nearly as interesting as I first thought.  I can be summed up pretty well by: loves vampires, has migraines, and is sometimes insecure about her professional worth.  (This post is even being published a day late because a migraine.)


But there has been some excitement in my life.  Over the last two weeks I have been catching up on all of my routine doctors appointments I have been putting off due to my work schedule and my husband's (and we share a car since we work at the same place).  He was out of town for nearly 2 weeks so I had the car to myself!  I've seen by dermatologist (I am very fair skinned and I get checked out for skin cancer), my gynecologist, my dentist, my cardiologist, and my urologist.  The good news is that everything is going well even though I was up to 6 months behind on being seen.  The bad news is that I've let my depression get the better of me these past few months and I didn't realize what a bad place I was in until I had time to myself.

I've been wondering whether or not to talk about this on my blog since I have had some outright ignorant reactions when I mention that I have depression.  But, May is Mental Health Month and I would like to talk a little about dealing with depression and anxiety and why you should seek treatment if you suffer from this as well.

I was an anxious little kid who was sad a lot.  As I grew up and started to have more adult problems, these tendencies became more pronounced.  It took a traumatic event for a doctor to recommend treatment for depression.  This treatment took some time to work, but when it did I realized that I had basically lived my whole life depressed to some extent and simply thought that was what normal was.  I don't need constant treatment for it, but if I'm not careful depression can sneak up on me so slowly that I don't notice it happening until it becomes horrible.  That is what happened for me recently and even then it took a doctor to bring the point up (I guess I'm not as good at covering it up as I thought I was).  I'm being treated again and things are starting to look brighter.  At least I don't feel alone and isolated even when I am surrounded by friends and colleagues.

My point is, if you think you are depressed or feel anxious for extended periods of time, talk to a doctor, medical or psychological.  I've been told to just "get over it" or called weak because I have sought treatment for my depression.  Well, will power can only help you look like nothing is wrong but you will still be depressed.  And I have discovered that most of the people who call me weak have similar problems of their own that they won't seek help for.  Truly, treating my depression is the best thing that I have ever done and I am not sure if I would be where I am today if I had not.

More on LISA/NGO and What Would You Ask a Scientist?

LISA/NGO Update

On May 2^nd, the ESA officially decided to accept their Science Programme Committee's recommendation to choose the JUICE (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer) mission for the 2020ish launch opportunity.  While this is unexpected, it is still a disappointment.  A thoughtful article on possible factors contributing to why LISA/NGO was passed over can be found here.

While this is disappointing, all isn't lost.  The scuttlebutt is that LISA may have a good shot at being the next mission chosen when the next mission selection takes place in 2015. (I know...  That's still a long while off.)  The science case for LISA/NGO has always been strong and by then the results of the LISA Pathfinder mission will be in (it appears that it will fly in 2014, not in June like I cited from the NASA website on my last LISA post).  Assuming success, many of the technical concerns should be resolved.

As LISA/NGO detects lower frequency gravitational waves than LIGO ever can (since seismic vibrations create too much noise for LIGO to be sensitive there), it is a beautifully complimentary observatory.  Who wouldn't love a detector where your main noise source is detecting too many gravitational waves at the same time (which is exactly the case for LISA/NGO)?

I'm looking forward to it!

What Would You Ask A Scientist (or Engineer, etc.)?

One of the reasons that I started this blog is that I wanted to show people that scientists are real people.  I've been told too many times to count that I look too young, normal, etc. to be a "real" scientist.  I know that they are trying to compliment me, but the subtext of this is that they thought I wouldn't be human like them.  So, since not all of you can come to visit me, I figured I would share some of my experience and life with you.

Well, it turns out that I am not as interesting as I thought I was (actually, I never thought that - I like vampire books, I have migraines, and I love my job at LIGO - that is me in a nutshell).  But the LIGO Scientific Collaboration is made up of over 800 scientists from across the country and around the world and I am guessing that you may like to find out more about them.

Here is what I am thinking...  I have a few basic questions I would like anyone profiled here to answer:

• What is it that you do for a living?
• What motivated you to choose this career?
• What kind of education do you have/need to do your work?
• Where are you from?
• Please tell us something unique about yourself.

I also have a list of questions that I would like the person being profiled to pick and choose from (not all are appropriate for everyone or would produce interesting answers).  Of these, I would love to know that you think is most interesting.  This may help guide the person being profiled in choosing what they wish to answer (or I can ask that your favorites be answered).

So, what would you like to ask someone who works on LIGO?  I have a survey you can click below and there is also a link just below the blog banner called "Survey" where you can respond.  Please note that the last option is where you can put your pressing question that isn't already listed.  Also, feel free to let me know if there is anyone in particular from LIGO that you would like me to profile!  Hope to hear from you!!!

Broken New Year's Resolution and Priorities for 2012

I really do know better than to make New Year's resolutions.  Truly.  But there is one thing that I want to do more of and that is to make more blog posts.  I've noticed that it is easiest for me to make posts on Thursdays so I resolved to post weekly on Thursday.

Then last Thursday happened...

I woke up with the most painful migraine I've had (at least in recent memory).  I felt like my head was going to explode all morning and early afternoon and when I finally took the correct meds (when you are alone and trying to keep your brains in your skull, you tend to lose a lot of common sense) and felt better, but not well, I was thoroughly exhausted.  I think I was asleep more hours than I was awake that day.  Between that and the fact that I had to write a last-minute abstract to present some new LIGO results at the upcoming APS April Meeting, my blog post never happened.

But, today is a new Thursday and the first new blog post of the year!

I hope everyone had a pleasant holiday season.  I didn't murder any family members so I'm counting mine in the win column (I'm kidding - I would never harm my family!).

So, what have I been doing as a LIGO scientist this year?

1. I've had a few projects in the works that I am trying to wrap up and complete (I love starting new and exciting projects and documenting completed computer programs is not exciting to me).  One of the things that has been simmering for a long while now is a survey of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration to assess the members' feelings on its diversity and climate (working environment).  I created and administered a similar survey just for us who work at the LIGO Lab (I am on the LIGO Lab Diversity Committee).  The point of surveys like these are to identify areas that can be improved to make everyone's working experience better and to find out what we are going right.  This survey is in a fairly-mature format and should be ready to release in the coming weeks.
2. There is a paper I have half written on multi-messenger astronomy and LIGO that I am targeting to  publish in The Physics Teacher.  This has been half done for a while now because other life issues have gotten in the way.  Notably, work and making an application to move up the career ladder and secure myself something more permanent (all postdoctoral positions are temporary like medical residencies - I talk about this a little in my post about "Becoming a Physicist").  This is high on my list of priorities for the near future. 
3. There is a new initiative in LIGO to write outreach abstracts (summaries) of the scientific papers we publish (like this one).  The papers themselves are almost always on the arXiv server (I can think of only 1 exception) and anyone can read these for free.  That is all well and good, but these papers are meant to be read by other experts and are horrible to wade through for someone who doesn't do that sort of thing for a living.  We are trying to make our results more accessible to everyone and these abstracts are written so that everyone can know what science we are doing.  I've been working on the outreach abstract for the paper discussing the methods employed to rapidly alert telescopes to search for possible optical counterparts to gravitational wave detections (this is the link to the scientific paper).  I've talked about working on this project before here.  When this abstract goes live, I will write more about it and discuss the other abstracts that have been written.
4. There are also numerable data analysis and software simulation projects that need to be further developed, but I won't go into those here (if you really want me to, let me know in the comments - I may tell you about it later anyway even if you don't).
5. I also still work extensively with the Science Education Center here at Livingston.  Yesterday, I traveled to a elementary school in Amite, LA to talk to about 120 kindergarteners over the course of the day.  Besides the fact that they were adorable and very interested, I had the cutest ambush of my life - a 20 little kid group hug! :)  And only a few of them where taller than my hips.  Little things like this (besides getting to discover new things about the Universe) is what truly makes my job amazing!
6. Finally, I have only a few questions left to answer from my previous call for questions!  These will be answered in the coming weeks.  If you have anything you would like to know about, let me know.  Also, I was thinking about having guest blogs from other LIGO scientists, engineers, etc.  Is that something you would be interested in?  (My husband is an engineer at LIGO Livingston with me, so I have one person that I can probably bribe into doing this.)  There are many different specialties here so this may be interesting.  Let me know!

Hope to hear from you soon!

~~~

Today's picture comes from my office and its new vampy inhabitants:

From left to right: Vampire Julius from Paul Frank, Count Chocula from the cereal of the same name, and The Count from Sesame Street

You may remember from previous posts that not only do I have a nearly unhealthy love for vampire books, but I also have a collection of stuffed undead (do NOT call them dolls).  Here is a previously posted picture of my office with a few of the figures in the background:

And another of my name tag covered light (which really doesn't function so well as a light since I've added even more tags) with a few other figures:

Living LIGO 1 Year Anniversary!

Today is the one year anniversary of the Living LIGO blog!  Thank you to everyone who has ever read my blog and followed me on Twitter.  It has been an exciting year and I hope that the next one is even better for you.

I've learned many things through writing this blog.  The first thing I found was my voice.  Originally, I was targeting this blog to middle and high school teachers and students to give them an insight into the science of LIGO and what it is like to be a scientist.  While I think that this blog has served that role to a point, I also found an audience drawn from a great community of science enthusiasts and I've been able to engage them with all of the things that I love about my job.

By far, it is my readers who have made Living LIGO what it is (and I personally think it is great).  A high point for me came back in March when it was revealed that the "Big Dog" blind injection was not a real gravitational wave.  I wanted to share it on my blog since this was a rare peek into how science is done.  One of my readers shared it on his blog (here) which got the attention of a popular "Cosmic Variance" blog (here) and the story was then picked up by places like Discovery News (here) and various other blogs.  The number of readers went from a few a day to over 1000 on that particular day (and many of those reader have now become regulars).  This is something I never expected when I started writing my blog but it is very exciting for me and I hope that it has at least been interesting for you.

I usually like to post a picture with every post, but I didn't have anything particularly relevant to this so I decided to give you a peek into where I create my blog post and most of my other brilliant research - my office.  It's small but it's all mine!  I even have a window (which is great since fluorescent lights give me migraines) and a door:

If you look closely, you can see some of my collection of stuffed vampire/creepy things.

*Thank you again to every reader out there.*  As always, please let me know what kinds of things you would like to know about.  I'll answer almost anything - from science questions to how to become a physicist or whatever!  Ask in the comment section of any blog post or contact me on Twitter as @livingligo.

What I Do When I'm Not Working (and an Anniversary)

Most of the posts I've made to this blog have been almost exclusively about my work even though I want this blog to be about my life, both the scientific and the mundane. 
This passed Thursday, I only worked a half day (I've been working more 6 day weeks than not for a while now) since I had a moderate migraine.  This one wasn't bad as far as all of the headaches I've had in my life, but it was more than enough to make light hurt my eyes and make me want to curl up in bed until it goes away.  So, I took care of the work that had to be done that day (like another conference call) and spent the rest of the day tending to my migraine.  This amounted to the first decent amount of down time I've had in a while.  While I wouldn't wish migraines on anyone, I am sort of glad I have mine since they force me to stop and relax from time to time (they also can hit at times when I simply can't put my life on pause and that is when I curse them).

So, what did I do with my time?  Well, first you have to know a little bit about me...  If I had 3 words to describe myself, they would be 1) physicist, 2) vampires and 3) Halloween.  I adore vampires and have read almost 200 vampire books in the last 4 years.  I also like to get the audiobook versions of books I've already read and liked to go to sleep to; if I have already read them, I won't keep my self awake to find out what happens next.  Since my eyes hurt me too much to read, I rested in bed and listened to my favorite books while I waited for my medication to take effect.  After about 2 hours of this, I felt a little better and proceeded to read a little.

This weekend was Halloween and I ADORE the holiday.  I love all of the dark fun and the idea of getting to be someone else for an evening.  I'm not one to dress up, but since I love vampire books, it is fun to think about what the world would be like if things that went bump in the night were real.

To celebrate, my husband and I went on the haunted trail at the Cajun Country Corn Maze.  (Tip:  If you go around this time of year, just go for the haunted trail since there is no line for this - there was a line almost an 500 feet long just for the maze.  Come back later in November to do the maze.)  Below is me in the pillory at the corn maze.  I think it is just scary how washed out my face looks with a camera flash:

I also love autumn in general!  So much so, that my wedding was autumn themed the day after Halloween.  That's right, today is Derek's and my anniversary!  To celebrate, here is a picture of us just after the ceremony: